Mike Dunne's Wine of the Week Pick: 09/30/09
Yorba Wines 2006 Amador County Shake Ridge Vineyards Tempranillo ($38)
For more than 20 years, Ann Kraemer has been a highly regarded vineyard manager in Napa Valley, helping such wineries as Shafer, Swanson, Chandon and Cain tend their plots, but never cultivating one of her own.
"I didn't have the means or the guts to do it," she says. That changed earlier this decade, when her father, a longtime Southern California citrus grower, offered to help spend part of his retirement developing a vineyard with her. "He got me at a weak moment."
Early on in their search for a suitable site, she was lured to the Sierra foothills by the region's diverse and intriguing soils. They toured 40 potential sites before buying 185 acres along Shake Ridge Road five miles east of Sutter Creek, about 1800 feet up the Sierra, a few miles west of Daffodil Hill.
Two Italian immigrant brothers first developed a vineyard on the site in the 1870s. They built a winery with bricks they made by hand, but then abandoned. "It's falling down, but it's still gorgeous. It's like they just walked away from it at Prohibition," says Kraemer.
In 2003 she and her family planted 34 acres to such varieties as syrah, barbera, zinfandel and tempranillo, each in its own small block, carefully chosen to take best advantage of exposure, drainage, soils and the like. "The soil up here is red loam with a lot of rock. It's scary beautiful."
As the vines matured, Kraemer began to sell grapes to boutique wineries in Napa Valley and Sonoma and Calaveras counties, and last year started to release wines under her own label, Yorba Wines. The name was inspired by Kraemer's great-grandmother, Angelina Yorba, great-granddaughter of Spanish native Jose Antonio Yorba, who arrived in California in 1769 as a member of the Portola Expedition, and stuck around to raise cattle and grain. (Since 1913, the Yorba name also has been the marketing brand for the Kraemer family's oranges. Also, the stick-like hieroglyphics on the label of Yorba Wines actually are historic brands used by the sons of Jose Antonio Yorba.)
This summer, at a seminar and tasting sponsored by the trade group Tempranillo Advocates Producers and Amigos Society (TAPAS), I tasted my first wine from the site, the Yorba Wines 2006 Amador County Shake Ridge Vineyards Tempranillo, which along with several other takes on the varietal that day showed why so many growers and vintners are excited about the prospects of Iberian grape varieties in California. (Over the past year, membership in TAPAS more than doubled, with nearly 300 growers and winemakers now in the organization.)
Medium-bodied and supple, the Yorba tempranillo was vivid with suggestions of strawberries, blackberries and raspberries cloaked with mild chocolate and spiced with a note of pepper. It's a pretty and polished wine whose firm tannins don't hobble the juiciness of the fruit, and with enough acidity to keep it lively at the table.
Yorba Wines are made by Ken Bernards of Ancien Wines in Napa Valley; Kraemer has no plans to build a winery or revive the one at the site of the vineyard. With the tempranillo, Bernards blended in 5 percent graciano to intensify the wine's brightness and crispness.
By the numbers: 14.5 percent alcohol, 202 cases, $38.
Context: Kraemer likes the tempranillo with grilled meats and chocolate, not necessarily at the same time, though she's looking forward to creating a mole to pair with the wine. "It handles spices really well," she says.
Availability: Yorba Wines are carried by The Market at Pavilions (formerly David Berkley Fine Wines & Specialty Foods), WineSmith in Placerville, and Nugget Markets at El Dorado Hills and Davis.
For more information: Visit the winery's Web site, www.yorbawines.com.